1. Scope of the Invention
The scope of this invention relates to a board game apparatus and more particularly, pertains to an election game apparatus. The same applies to the representation of the judicial, legislative and election process (U.S. Patent Cl. 273-257 and 273-279).
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are some patents that simulate the Presidential Electoral Process and the Electoral College voting system. Some of these comprise only the elements of chance, while others comprise only the elements of strategy. Some of these games are very primitive, while others are too complicated for juniors and teenagers. Some of these comprise original ideas, while others are the compilation of previous inventions. We have listed the relevant patents relating to this topic and briefly comment on them:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,077 "Game of Presidents and the Electoral College Voting System" by Jerry F. Jackson and others, 1994. This game is similar in sense to a card game. It generates numbers of Electoral College votes for the States by the random selection of playing cards. This game has a very remote relation to the actual Presidential Election process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,293 "Election Game Apparatus" by Flavio M. Cabrera, 1992. This game is the most advanced attempt to reproduce the Presidential campaign. The major difference between this board game and ours is in the game apparatus. In our invention there are no peripheral paths and, instead of this kind of path, there is a branched geometrical graph for the movement of the players' token (se below). This graph has much more variability than linear paths.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,926 "Electoral College Game" by Leo C. DiEdigo, 1986. This game contains some interesting features with respect to the advance of players as a function of events. However, the predominance of chance does not allow the players to use any strategy elements in order to win.
U.S. Pat No. 4,299,390 "Election Board Game with Campaign Promise Markers" by Raul J. Delgado and others, 1980. This game primarily uses known ideas about campaign promises (U.S. Pat. No. 3,525,526) as the motive force for the game. However, the usage of a predefined "campaign promise scoring value chart" seems to us a primitive evaluation mechanism. We suggest that the evaluation of candidates' promises can not be predefined and it depends upon the current social and political situation in the country. We propose in our invention to evaluate this important factor by voting for the prospective promised bills at the Electoral College Convention (see below).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,967, 4,118,036 and 4,092,028 "President Election Game" by Salvador Marse, 1978. These patents have the same differences with our invention described above.
Here are some other patents of game boards simulating the election process: U.S. Pat. No. 4,085,938 to Bean, Jr., 1976; U.S. Pat. No. 3,525,526 to Marie A. Kenrick, 1966; U.S. Pat. No. 1,907,255 to Ferrari Jr., 1933; U.S. Pat. No. 1,616,216 to Dempsey, 1927; U.S. Pat. No. 753,949, 1904; U.S. Pat. No. 398,233, to Jeanie P. Clarke and others, 1889. Because the term of these patents has expired, we can confirm that the major parts of the original ideas comprising these patents are essentially represented in the above descriptions.
As you can appreciate from the above, there continues to be a need for a new and improved election game apparatus that addresses both the problem of ease of use as well as providing both an element of chance and strategy and also simulating the various components of the actual political process involved in the Presidential Elections. We believe our invention substantially meets this need.